Origins
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws region along the border between North and South Carolina, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson. His father died weeks before his birth, leaving his mother to raise three sons in modest circumstances. Jackson received limited formal education, though he developed literacy and later studied law. The American Revolution devastated his family: his eldest brother Hugh died from heat exhaustion after the Battle of Stono Ferry in 1779, while Andrew and his brother Robert were captured by British forces in 1781. Both contracted smallpox in captivity; Robert died shortly after release, and their mother Elizabeth succumbed to cholera fever while nursing American prisoners. By age fourteen, Jackson was an orphan, an experience that shaped his fierce independence and lasting Anglophobia.
Jackson moved to the Carolina backcountry to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1787. He relocated to the Tennessee frontier, where he built a legal practice and acquired substantial landholdings and enslaved laborers, establishing himself as a member of the planter class. He served as a delegate to Tennessee’s constitutional convention in 1796 and became the state’s first representative in Congress, followed by a brief tenure in the Senate. His military career proved more consequential: commanding Tennessee militia and later regular army forces, Jackson achieved national fame through his victory over the Creek Nation at Horseshoe Bend in 1814 and his celebrated defense of New Orleans against British forces in January 1815. His controversial 1818 invasion of Spanish Florida during the First Seminole War demonstrated both his aggressive leadership style and his willingness to exceed orders. After losing the disputed 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams despite winning the popular vote—a result Jackson attributed to a “corrupt bargain”—he mounted a successful campaign in 1828, winning decisively.
Presidency
Jackson’s domestic agenda centered on expanding executive power and dismantling institutions he viewed as tools of elite privilege. His administration implemented the spoils system, replacing federal officeholders with political supporters, which Jackson defended as democratic rotation in office. The defining domestic battle of his presidency involved the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson vetoed the Bank’s recharter in 1832, arguing it represented unconstitutional federal overreach benefiting wealthy interests at common citizens’ expense. He subsequently removed federal deposits from the Bank, distributing them to state “pet banks.” This action, combined with his Specie Circular of 1836 requiring gold or silver payment for federal lands, contributed to financial instability that culminated in the Panic of 1837. Jackson also confronted the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833, when South Carolina declared federal tariffs void within its borders. Jackson responded forcefully, securing passage of the Force Bill while supporting compromise tariff legislation.
Jackson’s administration pursued aggressive territorial expansion through Indian removal. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized negotiation of treaties exchanging Native lands in the Southeast for territory west of the Mississippi River. Despite Supreme Court rulings in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832) that affirmed tribal sovereignty, Jackson’s administration pressed forward with removal policies, resulting in the forced relocation of approximately 60,000 Native Americans. In foreign affairs, Jackson achieved notable successes: he secured payment of spoliation claims from France after extended diplomatic tensions and expanded trade agreements with various nations. His administration resolved longstanding claims with Britain regarding West Indian trade access.
Historical Significance
Jackson left office in 1837 with the national debt temporarily eliminated but with economic storm clouds gathering. The Panic of 1837 struck weeks after his successor Martin Van Buren took office, ushering in a severe depression that shaped politics for years. Jackson’s expansion of presidential power established precedents for executive authority, while his coalition-building created the modern Democratic Party. His policies toward Native Americans resulted in forced migrations, including the Cherokee Trail of Tears, causing thousands of deaths and fundamentally reshaping the American Southeast.
Historical evaluation of Jackson remains deeply contested. Earlier generations of historians celebrated him as a champion of the common man who democratized American politics and defended the Union against nullification. Twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship has increasingly emphasized the devastating consequences of Indian removal, his ownership of enslaved people, and his authoritarian tendencies. The removal of his image from the twenty-dollar bill, announced in 2016, reflects evolving public memory. Scholars continue debating whether Jackson’s presidency represented genuine democratic expansion or merely the extension of white male privilege at the expense of Native Americans, enslaved people, and political opponents.
Key Developments
- March 15, 1767: Born in the Waxhaws settlement on the Carolina frontier
- August 1791: Married Rachel Donelson Robards (marriage regularized in 1794)
- March 27, 1814: Defeated Creek forces at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend
- January 8, 1815: Won the Battle of New Orleans against British forces
- December 3, 1828: Elected seventh President of the United States
- March 4, 1829: Inaugurated as President in Washington, D.C.
- May 28, 1830: Signed the Indian Removal Act into law
- July 10, 1832: Vetoed recharter of the Second Bank of the United States
- December 10, 1832: Issued Proclamation against Nullification
- March 4, 1837: Concluded second term; succeeded by Martin Van Buren
- June 8, 1845: Died at the Hermitage plantation near Nashville, Tennessee